People turn into dragons when they die.

That's it, that's the worldbuilding idea. 

Gameable History: Domestic Polytheism

I'm listening to an audiobook of The Ancient City, by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges. Part 1 describes indo-greco-roman ancestor worship. It's a kind of domestic polytheism which I don't think I've seen represented in fantasy fiction (except, kind of, Mulan). 

To summarize the gameable bits:

• Each family has a god, and their shared god is the defining characteristic of a family.
• If funerary rites are observed, then you join with your god after death.
• If the god is kept satisfied (by feeding the sacred hearth, watering the family tomb with libations, and singing your family's hymns), then they offer protective blessings.
• The primary blessing is warding the land, but the family god can also provide a familiar spirit to protect family members on long journeys, help find good spouses, etc.
• If the god is neglected, their strength will diminish, and your ancestors will suffer and fragment into hungry wandering spirits.
• Gods cannot split or merge, and you can only worship one god.
• You can however switch to a different god via emancipation/adoption, or via marriage (which is a ritualistic form of emancipation from one family and adoption into another).
• The god legally owns the family land. It therefore can't be split or sold to a non-family-member. Primogeniture inheritance is less about land ownership and more about passing on a sacred priesthood.

Extensions

There's enough flexibility in the concept to accommodate magic systems with all sorts of implications. An idea not in the original beliefs but which I think would have fun story implications is if knowledge of the family hymns both grants greater access to and allows you to circumvent the protections of a family's god. True-name style tropes but for an entire clan. That would be a good seed for both inter- and intra- family conflict.

Curious Similarities

The book doesn't touch on this, but I've noticed that this kind of ancestor worship is fairly similar to some aspects of Chinese folk religion. I wonder if the similarities are coincidental, or if they're the result of cultural transmission, as happened with Greece, Italy, and India .

Or I guess another possibility is that neolithic peoples in multiple regions invented similar ancestor worship because ancestral spirits are actually real and all of my ancestors are starving because I've neglected the ancient rites. 

my bad if true 🤷

Wandering Titans, part IV - Hot and Cold, Plus Two More to Complete the Set

This is the final planned entry in a series of Wandering Titans, which are part weather, part giant monster. 

Previous parts with more titans: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

The Plague of Flame

AI Generated via Bing.
"Roman Tile Mosaic of a Rat kaiju towering above a burning city."

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: Smoke rising from burning forests or villages.

Environmental Effect 

:  Intense heat wave. Metal becomes too hot to touch barehanded. Outbreaks of fever-causing disease. Dry material spontaneously bursts into flame. Swarms of smoldering vermin spontaneously generate where you least expect it.

Appearance
:  Flickering apparition of a colossal Rat, wreathed in smoke. 

Behavior / Desires
: Hungry. Devours/burns fields, food stores, forests, and wooden buildings. 

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Pyromaniac Rat Cultists. Skin pockmarked and burnt. Constructs of flame or smoke fill their wounds, replace missing limbs, and grant a sort of manic undeath fueled by arson.
• The smoldering vermin sometimes contain valuable exotic chemical substances within their bodies. More common is that they contain nasty exotic diseases.
• Exotic fires and unusual forms of heat, which can be bottled by a skilled arcane technician. Floo, Bale, St. Elmo's, an unnamed species of flame that burns songs as fuel...
• Regular fire, too, if that's what you're into.

The Frigid Scapegoat

AI Generated via Bing.
"Roman Tile Mosaic of a giant sheep or goat creature towering above a frozen city. People pray to it."

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Snowstorm contained in a precise cylinder.

Environmental Effect 

:  Cold snap. Flames diminish and new fires cannot be lit. Pipes and vessels of water freeze and burst. Those who freeze to death will find themselves mysteriously revived and healthy when the goat moves on and the landscape thaws, but other harm remains.

Appearance
: Giant Ram with horns like icebergs. Flurries of snow drift out between matted locks of tangled wool.

Behavior / Desires
:  It seems to take a fascination in random things, tilting its head and fixing its eyes in place for hours at a time. Sometimes it takes the things, and not just a fascination. It lets out a massive breath, a downburst of bitter frigid air, causing collateral damage and knocking things aside, leaving only the object of the Scapegoat's interest sitting in a wind-blasted patch. This object - which is always perfectly intact whether it be a a statute, a mural, or something abstract - is then delicately picked up with teeth the size of warships and tucked deep into its fur.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Ancient treasures tangled in its locks.
• Ancient people too.
• Also something called "slood", which no longer exists anywhere else.
• Petitioners beseech the Scapegoat to take their sins and obligations. If they attract its attention, it is often willing to oblige. It takes one of their limbs, too, frostbitten and broken off by its terrible breath.
• A caravan of frozen corpses. They corpses in question were people dying of something else, and will become so again once they leave the zone of cold. Their caretakers are trying to hitch a ride towards a specialist magical institution which can help them, but the Scapegoat is currently headed in the wrong direction.
• Lots of ice. Quite valuable in some settings.

And here are a couple bits of human-made giant goat artwork I found inspirational: "The Stilted Ram", by Michael MacRae,  "Summoning a god", by Calder Moore, and "Giant Goatman and his bridge", by Esteban Hernandez

The Fluffy Floppy Megabunny

AI Generated via Bing.
"Hyper fluffy giant bunny seen from below. Titanic rabbit towering into the sky. Tiny angry beady eyes. Ancient Painting."

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: The horizon and clouds in that direction look faintly blurry, as if seen through some lenses of the wrong prescription. Occasionally, a large white cloud seems to rise and then fall.

Environmental Effect 

:  Blades and claws are blunted. Stone becomes malleable. Iron becomes as plastic. Minus 1d6 damage when attacking unarmed or with physical weapons. Minus 1d6 from falling or other impacts, as well. A very faint ever-present mist moderates temperatures while making your hair bouncy and voluminous.

Appearance
:  Like an opaque cloud that leaps and bounds high into the air before slowly drifting back down.

Behavior / Desires
: Oh how it hates! It yearns in its heart to tear apart the pathetic creations of mortals. To trample their farms, and bring their empires to ruin, to lead mindless armies into pointless slaughter, and to hear their lamentations. Of course, none of that is obvious from its vast vacant expression. It just seems to bounce around harmlessly and at random.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• When the titan lands on top of you, it's said to be quite a relaxing experience, "like a fog made of hugs". It impairs visibility a bit, but doesn't impair movement and only lasts a few minutes at a time.
• Occasionally, patchs of "fluff" can get caught on brambles. These can be magically spun into a something like silk which is bouyant in air.
• Although the softening aura of the titan impedes the function of some devices, it enables forms of otherwise impossible crafting. A train of artisans follow the Megabunny in mobile workshops, creating ornate and durable artifacts out of materials which are difficult to work anywhere else.
• This train has grown over the years into a Wandering Festival which is part carnival and part trade show. In the big top, trapeze artists perform stunts without a net, jugglers juggle swords by the blade, and big dudes punch each other in the head while laughing. 
• Because blades and bludgeons are blunted, the most effective means of dealing with ne'er-do-wells (besides hiring a wizard) is via grappling. A tradition of wrestling has developed in the Wandering Festival, and the greatest wrestlers from all over the world come to demonstrate their prowess. Elaborate costumes are not required to enter the tournaments, but are appreciated by the crowds.
• Lots of happy people.

The Wretched Ape

"monkey"

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: Clouds of dust. Faint tremors and distant echoes of loud noises.

Environmental Effect 

:  Earthquakes.

Appearance
:  Big monkey. (Not actually an ape.)

Behavior / Desires
: It's a big monkey that knocks things over and shakes its fist at clouds. When it jumps around, it causes earthquakes.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Things which have been knocked over by a big monkey.

Additional Titans: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Worth the Candle: The Exclusionary Principle (Free Worldbuilding PDF)

I've helped put together a pdf for Alexander Wales' worldbuilding document The Exclusionary Principle. It's basically a splatbook for the setting of his webnovel, Worth the Candle, which focuses on the setting's exclusion zone, areas where degenerate magic has been divinely quarantined.

Click here to download a PDF of The Exclusionary Principle

In the pdf, this map has clickable text which links
to different chapters of the worldbuilding document.

Alexander Wales wrote The Exclusionary Principle.
I helped with the PDF layout, and also created the map you see above.
Other art in the document is AI generated.

(Wales initially planned the thing to just be a small list, but one thing led to another, and sometimes things get a bit out of hand and you end up with a 150 page worldbuilding document.)

Reblog: Worth the Candle: The Exclusionary Principle

This is a reblog/recommendation for a book-length chunk of oddball world-building which you can read here:  Worth the Candle: The Exclusionary Principle

Each short "chapter" describes some magical phenomenon that's been divinely quarantined after getting out of hand. 35 chapters have been published so far, and the remaining chapters will be published one-per-day for the next month.

There will also be a pdf once it's all done.

This is a worldbuilding supplement to Alexander Wales' Worth the Candle series. Quoth the Wale:

The exclusions doc was written with the intent that you didn't absolutely need to have read Worth the Candle, but there might be some mild spoilers, and there are occasional notes from various characters on the exclusions. If you haven't read WtC, just dive in and hopefully there's enough explanation in either the preface or the other worldbuilding doc for you to get by. Or let the words wash over you and any confusion can be a part of it.

These "chapters" (each ~1K words) will be posted to AO3, and linked on my subreddit and on my Discord, where I expect the majority of the discussion to take place. 

Slug Exclusion Zone

Name: Slug Exclusion Zone
Code: SLEZ
Types: Minor, Enpersoned?
Date: 237 AM

Summary: The Slug Exclusion Zone (SLEZ) is a circular exclusion zone about a mile in diameter that contains a single giant slug.

History: Slug magic was a form of magic that allowed practitioners to bond with slugs and use them as extensions of their own bodies. Slug mages could dip their hand in a vat of slugs and get a prosthetic slug hand that could manipulate objects, secrete slime, or fire projectiles (made of slugs). Slug magic was also used for healing, as slugs could regenerate wounds by permanently bonding with their host. Slug magic was popular in the region of Slough, where slugs were abundant and revered as sacred animals.

In 237 AM, a group of researchers from the University of Lysia San Slough decided to study the potential of slug magic for healing head injuries. They experimented on volunteers who had suffered brain damage, implanting slugs into their skulls and using slug magic to stimulate neural regeneration. However, something went wrong with the procedure, and instead of healing the volunteers, it transferred their ability to use slug magic to one of the slugs. This slug escaped from the laboratory and began to consume other slugs, growing in size and power. It also developed a rudimentary intelligence and a hostile attitude towards humans.

The slug slowly rampaged through the city of Lysia, leaving a trail of slime and destruction behind it. It killed three people and injured dozens more, before it reached the outskirts of the city and encountered the exclusion barrier. 

Features: The SLEZ is dominated by the presence of the giant slug, now estimated to be about eight hundred feet long and several feet thick, with a mottled brown color and numerous eyes and tentacles. It can use slug magic to manipulate other slugs within the zone, and spends much of its time herding a 'flock' of small ordinary slugs throughout the zone, eating whatever sparse vegetation manages to grow there among the slime-encrusted ruins. In addition to its mastery of slug magic, the giant slug also wields a number of looted entads, which are now embedded in its slimy hide. One of these entads grants it the ability to project its thoughts as speech, an ability it most frequently uses to announce its hatred of humanity and to recite crude poetry about moss. 

Only a relatively small portion of the city of Lysia was enveloped in the exclusion zone, and much of the rest of the surrounding city remains inhabited. Even the University continues to operate, though in a greatly reduced capacity after the loss of its main campus. A minor, but important, part of the post-exclusion Lysian economy revolves around trade with the giant slug. Despite its professed hatred of humanity, the slug is capable of using its magic to produce vast quantities of slime with various properties, and is willing to do so in exchange for organic refuse. These slimes are useful in various industrial processes and are also used directly in the manufacture of a number of consumer products.

There is rarely a need to send expeditions into the zone - and such expeditions make the slime negotiations more difficult besides - but with proper planning, these can be carried out safely. After the initial evacuation of the city, no one has been since been killed by the giant slug. Although the slug is a fierce combatant at close range, and does try to kill anyone who enters the zone, its top speed is less than one foot per minute. 

Ground Squirrels : Tree Squirrels :: Dwarves : ???

Dwarf digs hole. He also lives in the hole. Some squirrel is like that. 

But some squirrel lives in the tree and digs to bury his treasure. 

 

Another important thing about Tree Squirrels is that they forget about a lot of the nuts they bury. Those nuts grow into the trees in a form of forgetful symbiosis.

 If a dungeon is the acorn, then what is the tree? 

Please, my soul yearns for the answers to these mysteries.

Teeth are Magic Crystals.

We all know wizard teeth are full of magic.

But in fact, all teeth and bones are full of magic to varying degrees. Living animals accumulate magic in their bodies when interacting with the aether. This magic settles in the form of magicite crystals, which integrate neatly into the apatite crystals found in non-magical bones and teeth. Any creature which lives in a magically rich environment will develop a more magicitic skeleton, and grow more resistant to injury as a result.

(This is also why the cheapest form of mana potion is simply concentrated bone broth. Makes a good stew and recharges your fireballs too.)

Bones and Teeths with Special Powers

Some creatures have adapted to direct their bioaccumulation of magicite towards specific parts of their skeletons, and to shape it for more esoteric effects.

In big apex predators like wolves and lions, the magicite concentrates in the fangs. This imbues their bites with supernatural killing power. The most dramatic example of this is the smilodon's ability to bite things from several paces away.

Other examples of tissues with high magicite concentration include the horns of antelopes, the clubs of mantis shrimp, the dermal denticles of certain sharks, and the tusks of the mighty porcine unicorn.

(Larger animals and apex predators tend to accumulate more magicite, but there are exceptions to this rule.)

Magical Bird Pearls

Birds (and frogs and some other creatures) lack teeth or other bony protusions, and tend to have unenhanced skeletons. Instead, they ingest a small rock or particle of sand, and then coat it with layers of magicite. The resulting magicitic gastroliths, or mana pearls, are most commonly used simply to aid in digestion, but can also be channeled to more exotic effects.

Who can forget the fire-breath of the flamingo, the shield-penetrating honk of the celestial goose, and the psychic calls of the songbirds?

You can never quite be sure what a hawk is capable of. They ingest and store the pearls from the birds they eat as prey, and elderly hawks are on par with young wizards in terms of the diversity of their spellcasting abilities.

Teeth are the Catalyst for Verbal Spellcasting

In humans, the magicite concentrates in the teeth, but not as a weapon. Human dental magicite is the reason that song and incantation enhances spellcasting.

A child's milk teeth are essentially mundane, being apatite-based. The second set of developing adult teeth are imbued with magicite throughout the first years of a child's life. And it is only once they erupt that a child begins to display magical aptitude. Wisdom teeth are so called because they develop for longer and so accumulate a higher concentration of magicite.

People often lose their teeth as they age, and it used to be that they needed ivory dentures to maintain their magical abilities. This all changed, of course, with the discovery of arguably the most important spell of the modern wizarding era: Fauchard's Renewal

Wizards Regrow Teeth Like Sharks

Anyone who practices magic frequently, and thus cycles more aether through their body, will accumulate additional magicite. But because their teeth have already erupted and stopped growing, most of this magicite goes towards strengthening the skeleton and generally enhancing the constitution.

Fauchard's Renewal is a spell with stimulates the growth of a new set of adult teeth. It was initially used as a way to improve the quality of life of the elderly. But it was quickly discovered that when grown in the mouth of a spellcaster, this tertiary set of teeth has an incredibly high magicite-to-apatite ratio. It is thus now standard practice to apply this spell to students at the conclusion of their magical training. Practicing wizards have lost both their baby teeth and their adult teeth, and now have "wizard teeth".

Wizard teeth are powerful magical items and valuable ritual components. Some mages are thus tempted to apply the spell multiple times, harvesting teeth to enhance their power. However, this process is stressful on the body. The nutrients that would be directed towards reinforcing the bones and counteracting the effects of aging are instead directed towards growing more teeth. Those who abuse the process risk premature aging.

(Also, if you beat up a wizard and steal their teeth, you can make dentures which give you a wizard level.)

A Metric System for Faerun

In many tabletop roleplaying games, the round of 6 seconds, and the space or square of 5 feet serve as basic units of measurement for game mechanics. Just for fun, let’s try to actually construct a system of measurements using these as our base units for time and distance.

The self-imposed rules of the exercise are as follows:

• Derived units are expressed simply in terms of base units. (Coherence)
• Larger or smaller units use a consistent exponential power (Though I’m not sticking to decimal).
• And if possible, the resulting system should feel psuedo-medieval, be intuitive to a 21st century American, and be useful for rules of thumb in a tabletop rpg.

---

Micropost: Pantheon of the Eternal Industrial Era.

Vatra - The Primordial Mother Fire. Embodied in the Sun (Her fire above) and Coal (Her fire below).  Consumed the previous world and from its ashes were born the gods.

Qiri - The Daughter Fire. Goddess of the Moon, gas, oil, lamps, chemistry, and noxious gasses.

Avull - Goddess of steam, waterfalls, storms, engines, beasts of burden, passion, and blood.

Hekuri - God of iron, foundries, bellows, mining, cement, stone, and the rail.

Turma - Goddess of agriculture, abundance, forestry, crowds, crowding, and plague.

Udhetar - God of canals, calm seas, trade, travel, deserts, desire, and desperation.

Fabrika - Goddess of management, textiles, wisdom, planning, and mass production.

Zare - God of gold, entrepreneurship, investment, prophecy, games and greed.

Shoku - Goddess of community, conformity, communication, the telegraph, lightning, roads, and repair.

Genje - God of paper, printing, knowledge, literacy, eloquence, entertainment, diplomacy and deception.

Martesa - Goddess of boundaries, borders, property, contracts, marriage, and oaths.

Ushtar- God of lead, law, order, rage, war, and gunpowder. Punisher of broken promises.

Kupon - God of the wilds. Merchandising. 

Inspired by this prompt from Discord user DefinitelyNotAnEggHahaha:

In many fantasy worlds, the gods create the world in a sort of medieval stasis. Humans, dwarves, etc, have medieval-level tech handed to them from day one, and the gods that exist in these worlds also often reflect that technology level (god of the harvest, god of the forge, etc). That is to say, these gods would make no sense in a world where everyone is a hunter-gatherer.

So, with that established, worldbuilding idea: A world created in a sort of industrial era stasis. Have gods of oil rigs, and railroads, and such

A sort of dirty steampunk kind of vibe, where tech never actually progresses because of the influence of these gods

PS: Kupon is literally just the Greek god Pan in a top hat and ill-fitting three-piece suit. 

Wizards in Rayon Stockings: Some worldbuilding notes on plastics.

How reasonable is it is include plastics in a psuedo-medieval fantasy world without fossil fuels? 

 

A better title might be "Alchemists in Rayon", because of course you can just wave your witchofingers and summon tupperware from the realms of chaos. But even restricting ourselves to low-magic fantasy, for many plastics, it's totally reasonable to throw them in. They'll probably just be rarer and considered high-quality objects instead of throwaway trash.

Clearly, the question on everyone's mind when they see this compilation of public domain witches is
"Where did they get those sweet leggings?"

Skip to the end if you just want a bulleted list of which plastics I thinks a witch might be able to brew in a cauldron. But otherwise, come with me on this scatterbrained journey into the world of organic chemistry.

 

Wandering Titans, part III - Making Things Personal

 Part 1, Part 2

Here's another batch of titans as weather. See part 1 for explanation. The unifying factor with this batch is that these titans interact more directly with people. The first stretches the concept of "weather" a bit.

The Hard-hearted King of Dragons

Logan Feliciano
The artist's description is also pretty good RPG brainfuel.

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Just the dragon's sharp silhouette seen occasionally in the sky.

Environmental Effect 

:  Blades and claws become sharper. Stone becomes unchippable. Bones become unbreakable. Metal becomes impossible to bend.  +1d6 damage when attacking a target without hard armor, like plate or shell. Bouts of dart-like hail impale the ground.

Appearance
:  Gargantuan dragon with impenetrable scales. Wings held wide, blocking out the sun.

Behavior / Desires
: The King of Dragons hoards peace and stability. In a conflict between two states, it will rush to decimate the attacking armies. It will use its breath to turn revolters into glass. And there is nothing it finds more beautiful than a tyrant on their throne. 

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Sharp nailed dragon cultists on ineffable missions of political espionage.
• Piles of wicked stones, once merely gravel, now made impassibly dangerous by the Dragon King's presence.
• Woodland creatures impaled on supernaturally sharp brambles and branches.
• Beehives and waspnests grown to unreasonable size, their stingers empowered, and their queens driven mad with a lust for expansion.

Radiant Fowl

"The Dragon Prince" background by Michael MacRae, but I doodled a little bird on top. 

 On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: Light on the horizon. Most noticeable during the night.

Environmental Effect 

:   Brightness that rivals the sun's. Lights up the night like the day (including effects like vampire ensmoldering). Somehow penetrates indoors and into caverns. Don't need light sources, stealth is impossible.

Appearance
:  A giant glowing phoenix, wispy tail trailing off towards the horizon. Or maybe its more of a glowing rooster. The details are hard to nail down because you can't really look directly at the thing.

Behavior / Desires
: Witness it! Witness its luminous glory! This titan wants to be seen, appreciated, and maybe even worshiped. It tends to gravitate towards areas with large populations of people or polished surfaces, where it perches and preens.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Fluffy, arm-length, radiant feathers fallen on the ground. They glow so brightly it hurts to look at them. A single small barb casts light like a torch. Frequently leads to deadly conflict between rival feather-hunters.
• Cold-blooded monsters, standing still, eyes closed, basking in the ever-present glow.
• Travelling titan researchers bedecked in reflective protective suits. Despite its proclivity for precariously perching on buildings and blinding pedestrians, it's overall the safest titan to observe and study.
• Nomadic lycanthropes following the titan to avoid transformation, driven only a wee bit mad by lack of sleep.
• Basements and dungeons choked with new sprouted vegetation.

Desiccant Prowler

Nutchapol Thitinunthakorn

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)
: No clouds in the sky. No rain.

Environmental Effect 

:  Rivers and lakes dry up, soil turns to dust, plants wither. Deplete an extra water ration each day. Persistent magical effects falter.

Appearance
:  A dusty striped pantherine thing, surrounded by a thin choking haze

Behavior / Desires
: Lazily tears apart magical protections, sabotages water reserves. It doesn't kill things directly, but its mere presence is hazardous, and it likes to watch things die. Stares down at entire villages or herds as the life drains out of them, and them laps up their souls like a cat drinking milk.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Fanatical dust elementals and living stone statues, helping wage war on water-based life-forms. The titan is ignorant of their devotion.
• Arcanohazard disposal teams dragging wagonloads of janky cursed items and failed enchantments into the titan's zone of influence, hoping the beast will rip them apart for fun.
• The desiccated corpses sometimes begin to crawl around and gnaw. Don't let them get their teeth into you, or they'll steal your blood and soul. Outside of the titan's hex, they crumble into ash, which can be sold to wizards for its magic-suppressing and water-absorbent properties.

Kekai Kotaki

Additional Titans: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Wandering Titans, part II - Fast and Slow

Giant monsters that are also weather phenomena.

The basic mechanism I suggested in the previous post is to roll 2d6 each day, and move the titan to a neighboring hex when doubles are rolled. Here's a pair of titans brainstormed while thinking about twists to those rules.

Stampeding Winds

Keep track of the direction the titan last moved. Each day, roll 2d6, and use the sum to decide whether this titan continues in that direction (6,7,8) turns left or right (3,4,5;9,10,11), abruptly reverses direction (2) or stalls in place (12).

Donato Giancola

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Swirling clouds, moving at a visible pace, forming and dissolving in the blink of an eye. Distant sounds of roaring winds and hooves.

Environmental Effect 

:  Hurricane-force winds topple structures and knock you to the ground. But if travelling downwind, you'll find yourself magically invigorated and full of energy.  Travelling through the hex in the same direction as the winds provides the same benefits as a long rest. Travelling through any other direction is difficult and hazardous. Exiting the hex in the upwind direction is impossible. 

Appearance
: A herd of charging ethereal stallions precipitating from the air. Clouds run through the sky, and smaller instantiations charge along the ground. Windward, the air speeds up, forming into visible near-tangible wind-creatures, and then slowly dissipate as they approach the leeward edge of the hex.

Behavior / Desires
: Wants to run. Wants to be free. Wants mortal creatures to charge alongside it without end.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• The smaller manifestations of the Stampede can be captured and used as a magical power source. Poacher-wizards try to do this with elaborate steel wind-traps. But it's dangerous work, as the winds speed up to impossible levels to batter down walls wherever a member of the herd gets trapped.
• Wind-dependent ecosystems of whirlibirds, tumbletrees, and lumbering strandbeests.
• Homes or even entire castles tumbling through the air.
• An encounter with an instance of the Stampeding Winds. If it likes you, there's a chance it will bless you with tailwinds for the rest of the day. Party travels twice as fast until the next time they sleep.
• Travelers hitching a ride on the winds
1. Two blokes calmly rowing along in an airborne canoe.
2. A gang of witches racing along on suped-up broomsticks.
3. A village of people, rapidly evacuated, carrying as many possessions as they could grab from their now-destroyed homes.
4. Bandits in a balloon with long hooks and nets, snatching up possessions that people left behind.
5. 140-years-old woman, hunched over with age, slowly walking with the wind. Hasn't stopped or slept for the past 50 years. Barely kept alive by the sustaining force of the titanic winds.
6. A whale which beached itself and just kept going.

The Ponderous Ox

This one's simpler. Roll 3d6 each day and move the titan when you roll triples.

While the party is awake within the titan's hex, don't advance the time of day, and don't roll for its movement.

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Clouds frozen in midair. Things sound slightly more quiet than they should.

Environmental Effect 

:  Silence. Stillness. Fires stop crackling and flickering, but still give out steady heat and light. Rivers freeze in place while remaining fluid. A diffuse mist fills the air. The sun and moon appear frozen in the sky. Your heart aches with nostalgia for things you've never seen. Loosed arrows slow to a stop and hover in midair.  Rest and rations are optional when near this titan. Cannot gain XP while in this hex. As you travel away from it, time suddenly returns to normal as if you never approached the titan to begin with.

Appearance
: A massive buffalo, with fur like boulders and horns like mountains.  Always faintly visible, far off in the distance, behind the next hill, shaded by the mists. You can always approach the titan, but can never reach it. 

Behavior / Desires
: No one has ever seen it move, or do much of anything at all but slowly breathe titanic breathes. (But surely it must move, for how else can it travel from hex to hex?)

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Void monk meditating on a hilltop. No, they haven't been following the titan. They've been here in this spot as long as they can remember. The titan hasn't moved in all that time, they say. 
• Small towns that don't exist, fiercely aggressive towards outsiders.
• Strange pillars, can be hacked apart (may trigger localized earthquakes) and sold to wizards to make immovable rods.
• Empty cabins, with a warm hearth and hot soup inside. If you sleep in the soft beds inside, you'll wake up on cold ground outside, weeks later, the titan having moved on.
• Incomprehensible alien geometries slipping through the gaps between moments in time. Probably nothing to worry about.

Additional Titans: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4

Wandering Titans (Monster as a Hex/Weather)

• Idea 1: Storms are fun in hexcrawls.
• See this system of tiered weather tables 
• or this Weather Hex Flower
• Idea 2: Giant Monsters are fun. Yes? Yes.

I trust you see where I am going with this.

Rules

In addition to the normal features of a hex, the presence of one of these Titans adds some sort of environmental effect and additional things to encounter to the hex it's in. 

The Titan should move about the map, but not nearly as quickly as PCs. It's a mountainous lumbering beast. Untested suggestion: Number the 6 hex directions. Once per day, roll 2d6, move the titan in that direction if you roll doubles.

Combat stats aren't given to the Titans for the same reason that combat stats aren't given to a hurricane. 

Some Example Beasties

Flood Serpent

Flood by Sandara

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Towering Rainclouds. Clouds being unnaturally pulled in.

Environmental Effect 
:  Torrential downpours. Banks overflowing. Ankle-deep water even where you might not expect. Poor visibility. Need sheltered high ground to rest.

Appearance
: A raging river, rising into the air, and then flowing wherever it pleases.

Behavior / Desires
: Capricious. Sometimes languidly arcs through the sky. Sometimes rapidly tears apart towns with sadistic glee.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Bountiful fauna. Animals flee the floods, but mysteriously more than could possibly live in these areas.
• Strange fauna. Creatures subtly wrong in form. Alien mutations. When killed, their bones perpetually leak water.
• Landlocked Pirates. Special boats that allow them to sail along in the wake of the serpent's storms, pillaging evacuated villages. 
• Her sociable children. In calmer waters within the serpent's hex, you can find strange smaller serpents assigning quests and  promising various wet boons. Personally, I wouldn't trust the things. But if you think stealing a dozen cats in exchange for a sword that gives the wielder extra blood sounds like a good time, that's your prerogative. 

Lucas Roussel

gavi-gavi

Penumbral Hound

by Muroid

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Dimmed sky. Sun sets early if the titan is to the west, and rises late if the titan is to the east.

Environmental Effect 

:  Darkness. Like night during the day. The sun and moon appear constantly eclipsed. Light from large fires just doesn't seem to carry as far. Need held light sources to navigate. 

Appearance
: The stars blacked out by an indistinct silhouette. Two bright eyes like rival moons. An occasional glint of giant teeth.

Behavior / Desires
: Slowly and carefully plod across the forest. It wants to be left alone. It wants to contemplate the stars. It wants to sleep.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• The cult of Mother's Shadow. Blindfolded titan-worshippers, skilled in echolocation. Core dogma is that none who see the Hound's face should live to speak of it. 
• Wizard vision. Spend enough consecutive time near this beast and you'll begin see the unseen. Permanent if you spend at least a full consecutive lunar cycle in the Hound's hex, or a week there without sleep.
• Shadow pits. Places of deep shadow (small pits, crevices, overhangs) become physically deeper within the Hound's domain. Sometimes open to inhospitable worlds.
• Snarls of titan fur, tangled in tree-tops. Can be woven into coarse, scratchy, uncomfortable cloaks which  cling to shadow and help hide the wearer.

The Swine Which Seeks to Unite the Earth and Sky

MtG card art by G-Host Lee

On the horizon (visible in neighboring hexes)

: Clouds of dust, floating rocks seen in the distance. Occasional tremors as floating chunks of stone leave the area of the beast's influence and come crashing to the ground.

Environmental Effect 
:  The earth reaches towards to sky. Trees grow upwards at visible rates. You feel lighter on your feet and can lift more weight. Random updrafts and downdrafts. Whole chunks of land lift up into floating islands.  No fall damage. Bulky items easier to hold in inventory.

Appearance
: Thick vegetation spiraling upwards into the air, carrying masses of debris with it. Pieces flake off and float into the sky. The entire tangled grove always looks at least vaguely like a giant boar.

Behavior / Desires
: Uproots earthen structures and hurls them into the air. Carefully avoids damaging obelisks and towers. Bows in deference to particularly impressive spires and mountains.

Things to Discover or Encounter Nearby

• Foreign Isles. Some of the large floating chunks of rock have been drifting along behind the Swine for decades, and are host to strange endemic species.
• Skywood. Plants which have passed through the Swine's body become buoyant in air and desirable for building flying ships. Incredibly difficult to collect in large quantity without getting crushed.
• Vanguard Birds. A society of birdmen worship the beast, and zealously attack anyone who comes near (that can't fly). Easy to bribe with shiny objects.

More Titans:

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Platescape: Outer Plates of Cuisine

Once again, my deepest apologies to Zeb Cook.

In the Planescape setting, the Inner Planes are worlds each comprised purely of some classical element. In the totally unrelated Platescape setting, the Inner Plates are each comprised purely of some food group. You can read more about that here.

In Planescape, there's also a great wheel of Outer Planes, corresponding to the standard D&D alignments of Good vs. Evil and Lawful vs. Chaotic. In Platescape, the Outer Plates correspond to the different kinds of dining experiences.

On one axis, we have Delicious vs. Repulsive. Delicious cuisine aims to evoke gustatory pleasure, satisfying the desires of the diner. Repulsive cuisine eschews these desires as irrelevant, or actively seeks to create an unpleasant dining experience.

On the other axis, we have Healthy vs. Unhealthy. Healthy cuisine aims to provide the diner with the optimal profile of macro and micronutrients. Unhealthy doesn't give a hoot.

Behold! The Great Smörgåsbord Cosmology:

The Outer Plates
The Iron Heavens	The Test Kitchens	Grillysium	Hunting Grounds	Party Mountain
Grandmarcadia		↑Delicious↑		Valhalunch
Dietus, the Fitness Nirvana	←Healthy	Everything Bagel	Unhealthy→	LIMBO
The March		↓Repulsive↓		The Empty Pan
Super-food Hell	Ghhhhgh	Compost Bin	Cosmic Supermax	The Abyss

——=== 🥪 ===—— 

Mathpost: Coordinates on a tesselating hexagonal world.

Turn back now, if ye be looking for some narrative content. This be nothin' but a big wad of barely polished geometry.


Basic idea is that you live on a giant flat plane that loops. (As in this story) Go far enough in any direction, and you'll end up back where you started. Navigational systems evolve to meet the needs of the people using them. What kind of system of coordinates would be useful for navigating on a looping hex?

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Rectangular Coords

X: Y:

Hexline Offset Coords

A: B: C:

 Unit length is equal to the inner radius of the hex.

(X,Y) coordinates are the standard Cartesian kind.

(A,B,C) coordinates are "Hexline Offsets". Basically, choose 2 opposite edges of the hex perimeter, and draw parallel lines first through the origin and then through your point. The absolute value of coordinate is the ratio of (the distance between the point and the line through the origin) and (the distance between the center and the perimeter line)

Further Explanation 

More detailed unpolished explanation below.

Neither the images nor text were optimized, so everything is a bit too large.

Campaign Setting: Platescape: The Inner Planes of Flavor

Apologies to Zeb Cook